Saturated Nereid Bougainvillea
Saturated Nereid Bougainvillea (#8D3073) is a true magenta with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (317°, 49%, 37%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary green. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
From the Latin saturatus, past participle of saturare, to fill. A technical color term in modern usage — saturation is one of the three axes of HSL (with hue and lightness). As a modifier, saturated implies that the hue is at or near its maximum chromatic intensity. Sits at the bold-and-bright top of the grid.
Greek Νηρηΐς, sea-nymph-daughter-of-Nereus. As a color modifier, nereid implies a sea-nymph-and-Aegean-foam quality, the visual register of Hellenic-Nereid-and-Aegean-sea-nymph hand-sea-nymph-and-Aegean-foam Hellenic-Nereid-and-Aegean-sea-nymph-and-Poseidon-court nereid-and-sea-nymph-and-Aegean-foam surfaces under Hellenic-Nereid-and-Aegean-sea-nymph-and-Poseidon-court Aegean-island-and-rocky-cove sea-nymph-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to nymph and dryad in usage.
The genus Bougainvillea — South American vines named for the French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville, whose 1768 voyage encountered the plant in Rio de Janeiro. The color refers to the bracts (modified leaves) of a vivid magenta Bougainvillea spectabilis: a saturated, slightly cool deep pink-magenta with the matte papery finish of bracts that surround the plant's tiny actual flowers. Brighter than fuchsia, cooler than coral.
Closest matches
The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.
Variations
Click any swatch to exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.
The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.
Wide gamut
The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.
Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.